Independent directors, who until recently were considered glorified yes men to the promoter, could see a lot of pressure in the coming days to maintain the precedent set in the USL case as well as added responsibilities of independent directors under the Companies Act, 2013 and other corporate governance regulations. However, corporate governance experts said many companies continue to exploit loopholes in the laws and ensure independent directors mostly play along with the promoters.

Even in the case of USL, where independent directors did finally crack the whip on Mallya, they said it was too little, too late.

"Independent directors have failed in the case of USL. They did not take the right precautions during their ongoing transactions with Kingfisher," said Mohandas Pai, former CFO and HR head of software major Infosys.

He said USL episode signals it's time companies and independent directors took their roles more seriously.

"This is a wakeup call for India Inc, to have the right independent directors and auditors specially looking into related party transactions. Also firms should decide to pay the independent directors more to get the right quality," Pai said.

Independent directors have often come under scrutiny whenever there have been controversies in India Inc, and there have been questions on how much independence these directors actually have.

There are signs of change though. Independent directors have become more worries in recent months, mainly due to the Companies Act dishing out some regulations around the liability of the directors and even capped their remuneration.

"The independent directors are expected in any case to exercise their independent judgement in decision making at all times, be intellectually honest while doing so, voice their opinion freely in the board meetings, and bring to bear upon their knowledge and experience in the board discussions for the benefit of the company and shareholders. This is the swabhavik dharma of the independent directors and this has nothing to do with shareholder activism," said Pratip Kar, former executive director of market regulator SEBI.

Industry trackers said that in the next six months many independent directors could resign from their roles due to increased liabilities and a cap on remuneration. The worry is that they could even be jailed in case of a corporate governance issue in the company they hold the positions.

"USL could just be one off case especially in the context of Indian companies where independent directors did take a stand. However, we have begun the transition and going ahead both expectations and liabilities of the directors will just go up from here," said Amit Tandon, managing director at advisory firm IiAS, or Institutional Investor Advisory Services India Limited.

While some industry experts have criticised these regulations — under the current regulations independent directors could fall in to trouble even in something as unrelated as company's cheque bouncing or irregularities in the pollution norms— others felt some sort of framework was required, mainly due to the way independent directors operate in most of the companies.

Speaking to ETfrom London, a reputed independent director said the whole process in which the independent directors are selected in India is flawed. "The meetings are nothing short of sham, where the promoter dishes out what he wants, and independent directors just agree to it. The independent directors would get millions as fees, and in some companies these positions were filled with relatives or friends," he said.

Insiders point to many decisions taken by even some of the biggest Indian companies, which were often just ego issue for the promoter, or the CEO. "Look at some of the M&A done by top companies and you realise it was not business sense driving it. What did the independent directors do in these cases?" the independent director asked.